Effects of work or organisational changes on staff
Home » Change Reactions » Effects of work or organisational changes on staffWork changes may be gradual or rapid. Some may be planned e.g.; new jobs, promotion or re-organisation.
Others may be imposed e.g.; take-overs, lost contracts or redundancies. All changes involve learning. Some people thrive on new situations; others prefer to plan and prepare in advance.
If you can anticipate changes in your work, or for your staff, try to plan ahead and identify training or other resources that can help you and them to be prepared.
Before planning new work or organization changes it may be useful to review and audit previous ones. Which ones went well? Which caused problems? Are you or your colleagues still carrying unfinished business from previous changes? Each new change is an opportunity to make a fresh start and sometimes to resolve old issues as well.
Many employers try to ignore the personal life of staff and expect them to perform much the same regardless of life outside work. But life cannot be separated from work if major changes happen in either area. As pressures increase on staff the work life balance must be recognised and respected. This is usually recognised for events like marriage or birth of a child. But it also applies to separation, bereavement, new partners and re-location.
The most common symptoms of career crisis (e.g. sickness absence, scapegoating, poor performance, discipline, resignations and dismissal) occur during a transition period. But because transition crises usually occur several months after a major life event, individuals and their managers may not recognise connections between a recent change and problems at work.
These changes may arise from personal life-events, good or bad. Or they may result from work changes such as a new job, new boss or re-organisation.
If employee performance appears to be deteriorating the first thing to check is whether they have experienced any major changes recently, before starting discipline or dismissal procedures.
Disciplining an employee who is already in a personal crisis has a high risk of traumatising them, resulting in an extended crisis that could lead to extended periods of sickness absence for anxiety states or clinical depression.
Dismissing an employee in transition crisis often wastes a valuable member of staff who was likely to recover within a few weeks, and destroys the trust of other staff. In fact employees in the recovery phase of a transition (work or personal) are likely to be at their most creative and constructive, with more accurate perceptions of the current reality than "stable" staff who are still living by older values, or those still in crisis.
The most serious issues for organisations occur when senior management teams are in transition, either because of new appointments or corporate changes. At this stage each individual manager may be going through a personal transition, with the same hazards and opportunities described above for other staff. If the whole team is in transition together there may be severe conflict, with a risk of one or more managers being scapegoated and demoted or dismissed. Strategic errors of judgement in this phase may affect morale in the whole organisation.
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Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.
Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands. 
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. 
If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
‘The greatest discovery of all time is that people can change their future by merely changing their attitude'. 
Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.
Be the change that you want to see in the world. 
There is nothing so stable as change. 
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. 
No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.
Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full-time job. 
Nothing endures but change. 
There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won't. 
It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. 
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. You can do anything you decide to do. 
Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist. 
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 
Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies. 
I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. 
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. 
Men make history and not the other way around... Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better. Harry S. Truman
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it. 
We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. 
Be the change that you want to see in the world. 
There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles. 
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. 
